It is, of course, well known that a ball of dough can be molded into various shapes and sizes to produce food products. Traditionally, once the desired dough was properly mixed, the dough was rolled to the proper thickness and then cut into the shape needed to produce the food product. However, this method is labor-intensive and costly with respect to retail food products and restaurant services.
Over the years, machines have been utilized to overcome this problem by mechanically forming dough into the desired thickness and shape. In this respect, Schultz discloses a device for pressing and imprinting bread products. The disclosed device utilizes a mold cavity which is permanently attached to the upper support frame of the device, wherein the upper mold portion is pivotal about a horizontal axis relative to the base mold portion for forming the dough thereagainst. The device disclosed in Schultz is utilized for the production of high volumes of dough products in one size. While Schultz discloses a device which provide access to the lower forming plate for loading the dough and unloading the finished shell, the pivotal design lacks any mechanical advantage and also produces uneven forces during dough compression.
Raio U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,417,149 and 5,800,844 disclose dough pressing machines which utilize linear motion between the upper and lower forming surfaces to overcome many of the disadvantages found in the pivotal machines. The quantity of dough can be pressed from a dough ball into a desired thickness by controlling the stroke of the upper forming surface. However, the Raio devices provides minimal access for loading and unloading the dough. Kuhlman U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,660 discloses a dough forming machine that utilizes an actuating cylinder motion to mold a dough ball into a desired thickness. While Kuhlman provides more space between the forming surfaces, access for loading and unloading is still limited.
As will be appreciated from the above, dough forming machines exist in the prior art; however, they are not well adapted for providing both access for loading and unloading and the ability to provide increased mechanical advantage to assist the operator form the shell. Further, many of the prior art machines are designed to be used to produce only one configuration of dough product without major modification.
McCarney U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,244,167 and 6,205,914 overcame many of the problems in the prior art with respect to producing various sizes of shells by utilizing a ring or disk structure which dictates the peripheral configuration and thickness of the resulting tortilla shell. However, the McCarney patents disclose actuating mechanisms that either provide limited mechanical advantage to form the dough products or provide limited access to the forming space which is the space necessary to place the raw dough in position between the forming surfaces and remove the completed shell from the machine.